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Most teachers are good and capable. These days there are also very well paid. And they get annual leave some of us can only dream of. I am prepared to believe that many social workers are also good folks. I do not actually have any evidence for this but I am a charitable fellow so will give these Guardian reading losers the benefit of the doubt. But it is clear that in both professions there are a good number who are what one might term “underachievers.” Perhaps one could go further and argue that some in both professions are just downright incompetent and also misguided deluded lefties who put political dogma ahead of the needs of the kids they are meant to look after.
What is truly repellent about both professions are their Union representatives. For them there can be no concept of failure and any criticism of any one of their members is rebuffed and attacked. Thus the bad apples (or orchards in the case of Rotherham, Haringey, etc social services) are protected and carry on being bad apples.
That those who lead these unions are daft is beyond doubt. Perhaps you remember the story about how one teacher’s union demanded that the National Curriculum be ripped up and pupils be given lessons in new core subjects such as walking. I quote from Martin Johnson of the ATL in September:
“There’s a lot to learn about how to walk. If you were going out for a Sunday afternoon stroll you might walk one way. If you’re trying to catch a train you might walk in another way and if you are doing a cliff walk you might walk in another way.
If you are carrying a pack, there’s a technique in that. We need a nation of people who understand their bodies and can use their bodies effectively.
I covered that story at the time HERE
Being daft is one matter. It is not that harmful accept, of course, that the “customers” (i.e. school kids) suffer by being provided a second rate service. The damage comes when folks who should be fired are defended. On the teacher front this week we saw news that a school in Ipswich is paying tens of thousands of pounds to bring in literate folk to edit the end of term reports provided by teachers so that they avoided spelling and grammar mistakes and read well.
Hell’s teeth. The teachers have all got PGCE’s. They all have A levels. They are trained and educated at school and University and it seems that some cannot spell, do not know a comma from an apostrophe and cannot string two words together. The reaction of the NUT “ Some pottery and art teachers might need assistance”. No. If a pottery/art teacher with A levels and a PGCE cannot string two words together I am sure the parents will overlook it. The fact is that this school has ALL the reports “corrected.” If teachers are illiterate they are not up to the job and should be let go. It is that simple. But the Union wishes to protect the bad apples again.
And to Rotherham where the Stasi Social workers have seized kids from a couple because they belonged to UKIP. How does the Trades Union official for social workers react?
“My first question would be, does the local council have a clear equality policy so you can understand a bit more about the decision-making? Otherwise it’s very difficult to fathom.”
No. Your first question should be “which idiots made such an obviously bad call and when will they be fired?” We have seen time and time again in social worker/childcare scandals that it is almost impossible for the social workers who have screwed up to get fired. And the Trades Unions always back the workers however bad they are. Of course that makes folk like me just think that all social workers are useless. Were the Union to stand up and say “these folks are incompetent and should be fired in order to protect the good name of the vast majority of our profession” it would earn my respect and make me think more highly of that profession. But it never happens.
Heck but what do my views matter? I am a mere taxpayer, paying the wages of these folk (and also of many full time Trades Union officials who are still on the Government payroll, the Pilgrims, for reasons I fail to understand). My views do not matter. The welfare of kids does not matter. It is the “right” of workers to be useless that counts for everything and must be protected at all costs.
This article originally appeared exclusively in the weekend Tomograph newsletter of 25th November sent out from TomWinnifrith.com – Tom Winnifrith’s blog publishes two free newsletter’s a week, both with exclusive articles not appearing on his website, links to all articles written by him on his own blog as well as for a number of leading UK and US financial websites and – in the Wednesday edition – a free share tip.
